El Paso would be Paris.Amarillo would be Copenhagen.Beaumont would be Bucharest.and the Valley would be Rome.

Poor argument. Average commutes to work (as in driving around a metro area) are comparable between Europe and North America.

That makes up the majority of miles people drive, by far.

I understand that, but you need to look at the average amount of miles people drive in....say....a year. Sure some people like to take longer road trips (I have in the US many times, and the increased gas prices are felt, of course).

Just commuting to work in everyday life, you know, your average 20-30 mile one way commute from the suburbs is not a whole lot different from European commutes. It's 50 km (30 miles) one way from where I live to Frankfurt. Lots of people do it because Frankfurt is where the jobs are.

I don't think the average number of miles driven by Americans and Europeans is all that different. Maybe slightly more on the American side. (Counting actual drivers, of course. Per person it's obviously higher in the US because of the lack of public transportation.)

And considering the gas price is half that of Europe, but cars (slightly exagerated) use maybe double the fuel, I don't think the average amount drivers pay is all that different in a month or a year, either.

If gas does go up to seven or eight bucks a gallon it might be possible to get some sort of actual change in the way life is lived in this country that will make things better in this world, but then again even after what's considered 'normal' has more than doubled it hasn't happened yet.

The formation of Massachusettstan?

I'd be all for that...

One thing that Texas and New England have in common is that both people inside them and people outside them can get pretty gung-ho about the idea of them not being part of the United States any more.

Though that wasn't what I was thinking of. My assumption was that we could actually maybe focus on finding some way to meet our energy needs that did not emit putrid smoke or at least emitted it in less immense quantities, not that it would lead to some sort of Mad Max-style balkanization. Call me a dreamer.

I'd certainly rather not prejudice your ability to get to El Paso or Beaumont, but I'd like for there to be a way for you to get to El Paso or Beaumont that doesn't poison the area between you and El Paso or Beaumont. I think we all want this unless we have perverse incentives not too, we just all have different ideas about how to attain it.

I'd certainly rather not prejudice your ability to get to El Paso or Beaumont, but I'd like for there to be a way for you to get to El Paso or Beaumont that doesn't poison the area between you and El Paso or Beaumont. I think we all want this unless we have perverse incentives not too, we just all have different ideas about how to attain it.

There's something to be said for freedom.

True, emissions associated with oil + gas industry may be bad, but there are major chemical advantages to the use of oil and natural gas to power automobiles.

1, energy density2, availability.

I can see natural energy used to generate electricity, or heat, but gas in cars works really really well, and is far superior to hybrids. And I haven't even gotten into the issues with rare earth metals that are required to make the hybrids work.

I think the real solution is to accept the fact that gas is just the best fuel for automobiles and work at making them more efficient, or finding a way to generate synthetic gas relatively cheaply. You could probably do that with nuclear power plants.

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"By not voting, you would let someone win who wants to destroy the regions, raise taxes, remove guns from the street, nationalize transit, expand abortion coverage, a gut the military." - Hagrid

Synthetic gas generated by nuclear plants would be a fabulous idea, and it's certainly possible to make gas-powered automobiles much, much more efficient--indeed, good work in this is already being done. Synthetic gas would also have the advantage of being exactly as American-made as we needed or wanted it to be. Of course, I'd support inter-city rail lines as well, because I live in a pretty rural area (there are rural areas in Massachusetts!) and I know how annoying that can be. I'm lucky the buses in my particular little area are decent.

Effective policing requires to know when backing down is in the best interest of public safety. By all accounts, the culture of the Ferguson Police was ignorant of that fact, and instead treated Cartman of South Park as a role model for how to be a police officer.